Conference scenes
September 29, 2004
Brighton in September: massive security everywhere; police filming passengers leaving the trains; armed officers on most streets; huge steel barriers blocking the front; mysterious men dressed in black overalls searching rubbish bags and even questioning bus drivers at 5.30 in the morning!
Welcome to Brighton for the Labour Party Conference.
The media are full to bursting of the Brown-Blair axis of debate and the besuited politicos talk earnestly about all this as if it is the only thing that matters.
Outside the re-circulated air of the Conference Centre there is life, lots of it. 10,000 marched on Sunday afternoon for Trade Justice. Ten years ago the very concept of Trade Justice was almost unheard of. Now it is a live issue that unites the peace, development and aid lobbies. The excellent advertisements from Christian Aid have hit home effectively.
Lobbying the Labour Party Conference makes a lot of sense for any campaign, but it often feels that in the Conference centre it is all arcane manoeuvring, whilst outside there is life and real debate. Trade Justice is well organised and focused; what other lobby could speak to 550 MPs over one weekend, and make the Government nervously look over its shoulder before the next round of the World Trade Organisation talks.
On Sunday, preceding the opening of Conference was the traditional Campaign for Labour Party Democracy rally. Formed in 1970 in the Pill Box Pub in Waterloo, the CLPD has had more effect on the Party structures than anything else, and bringing re-selection and direct leadership elections. New Labour have changed much of that in favour of consensus policy forums, and power to the leadership and cabinet. CLPD is still here and ensuring Labour returns to something remotely resembling its grass roots, which will only be achieved if the Party membership and affiliates can have real influence on policy.
The electoral set backs for the Party, all occasioned by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, have, ironically, created space for serious debate.
On Sunday afternoon, the Housing debate brought a sense of reality. The office of Deputy Prime Minister, which is supposed to coordinate housing policy, has put a straightjacket ‘round council tenants. If they want improvements done they must either transfer to a Housing Association and the consequent loss of direct accountability, or to an Arms Length Management Organisation which is run on business lines. If they vote to remain a Council tenant they get nothing. The political problem is that thousands of tenants have refused to transfer and thus await repairs. The Fourth Option is simply allowing Councils the same debt write-off provisions of housing associations, and money for major repairs. Conference duly voted for it. Well done Defend Council Housing on a brilliant campaign - now the hard bit of making the Labour Government listen to the Party.
The Quaker Meeting Hall in Brighton is a wonderful and friendly building that is open to all good causes. On Sunday all day it was one of the bases for the Trade Justice Campaign, and by the evening it was heaving with the biggest anti-war rally for years at a Labour Conference. I had the honour and difficulty of Chairing it and ensuring all speakers kept to their limit so all could participate. They all did and the reality brought to the meeting by the eyewitness accounts had a profound effect. Death tolls as figures always sound cold; the reality of eyewitnesses saying how bombs fall and kill, how ambulances are prevented from taking the wounded, and how what helicopter gun ships really do is powerful.
Half way through the meeting we took a call to a mobile phone from Paul Bigley, Ken’s brother, who talked from his home in Amsterdam. A man of huge knowledge and understanding of the region, and the psyche of the community, he did more than talk about Ken. Pleading for Ken’s life, he also pleaded for all the lives in Iraq and Palestine. He praised the Irish Government for their speedy and effective action, and was sharply critical of Britain for not engaging and getting on the phone to those that matter. He made it clear that he did not want negotiations as such, just talk and communications. It is interesting that the voices that seem to have effect are the Muslim Community, and the Peace Movement.
The meeting concluded with brilliant orations from Tony Benn and others, and an emotional appeal from Ewa Jasciewicz accompanied by 11-year-old Zayneb who lost her entire family in Iraq after an American bomb. She was left with one leg and a bleak future and represents the plight of many children.
Monday morning of Conference was Gordon’s day, and the analysis of his speech is endless and overdone. But he did make the important point that there had to be a “progressive consensus”: rather tortured language but for those familiar with code breaking it can be read as social cohesion and justice, not free markets and privatisation. Later in the speech he was more specific when he said “I have seen this ethic of public service … there are values far beyond those of contracts, market and exchange”. Fine, I agree with it and welcome it. Then I met Mark Serwotka, whose membership will be decimated if the Civil Service job cuts are allowed to proceed. Public Service is difficult without public workers, and Gordon seems to admit there are problems with the quality of service delivered by the private sector.
Labour Conferences are often about core values and those of public ownership. The Tories privatised at knock down prices to their friends who then proceeded to asset-strip the railways. We have been in Government for seven years, and put more money into railway construction than ever before. We (the public) rebuild the West Coast Main line and then praise Richard Branson for running a protected and (to him) profitable service of pendolino trains. Something is wrong. Stephen Byers, to his credit, created Network Rail in place of the late and unlimited Railtrack. But we need to ensure that the leasing and operating companies are also in public hands and publicly accountable. The leadership staged a cajoling process worthy of Davy Crocket defending the Alamo, with claims of a cost of £20 billion to take the railways into public ownership. The TSSA had patiently and realistically explained how it would be done for the public benefit. The result, another victory for ordinary people and another demand that the Government listen to its own Party.
As the delegates headed out of the surreal world of the Brighton Centre, they were met with passion. Not this time the demands of lobbies, but of the Brighton and Hove Aalbion supporters willing John Prescott to agree a new site for their club at Falmer - I love the passion of football supporters and sometimes wish it would also be directed towards democracy at the clubs that charge so much. Victories for democracy go well beyond the first hurdle!
Brighton is a place for pressure, and the group that deserves attention and justice are the pensioners. Re-linking with earnings and protecting occupational schemes is crucial to the future well being of everyone. Labour has accepted there is a problem and the fuel allowance and the minimum income guarantee are welcome, but we must go further. Linking the State Pension to earnings would be a great stride, as would real protection for workers who have invested a lifetime in company pension schemes, who are facing disaster. We need regulation and security, and Labour must deliver on this.
On cue to Blair’s speech come the hunting lobby, and their anger at their perceived loss of “rights”. Personally I have no problem with riding to hounds around the country, but leave foxes and other animals alone and stop claiming this is the British “way of life”. I can imagine the same things were said about bear baiting, cock fighting, and certainly about otter hunting.
On Thursday we will see where all the conference chicanery has got to. The majority of ordinary people want the troops out of Iraq and want peace. The majority do not want us tied up with the American neo cons on foreign policy. Tony Blair wants Conference to endorse his policy and only manoeuvring will ensure he gets his way.
Sometimes people in Parliament or at conference should remember that those outside want to be heard. Security can protect and isolate and can deny the reality. This week there has been some welcome signs of life, and the Party is the stronger for that.
Iraq three years on
September 15, 2004
In his astonishingly low-key address to the Trades Union Congress on Monday, Tony Bair made scant reference to Iraq.
He only said that he believed in the policy he was pursuing and that, essentially, we had to trust him on it.
Nobody has ever doubted his belief in the policy being pursued with such zeal. What almost everyone doubts is the honesty of the arguments used to take us to war, and that he realises the enormous damage done to Labour by his policy.
Three years ago Blair was at Congress when the twin towers were attacked; he broke off his speech to head back to London. He then went on to make the “shoulder to shoulder” declaration of support for the USA.
Whilst there was huge scepticism about the policy and opposition to the war in Afghanistan this was nothing compared to opposition to the Iraq adventure.
Tony Blair seems to have difficulty understanding that the damage to his Government over Iraq is enormous and getting worse. The smart people that surround Blair have always calculated that “domestic” issues would re-assert themselves in the run up to an election and that memories of the war would fade.
However two and a half years of assertions, dodgy dossiers, trips to Washington and defeats at the UN have left their mark on public opinion. An infinitely greater mark has been left by the thousands and thousands of Iraqi dead, the 1000 American soldiers, the British dead, and the worsening situation in Iraq. Forces of occupation are seldom popular when their motives for being there are clouded with such suspicion.
Last week Hans Blix came to Parliament to speak to MPs about his experience as a UN weapons inspector. In a long address he recounted his endless trips to Iraq and the difficulties of being an inspector trying to carry out a United Nations mandate. He also pointed to the successes he had enjoyed in disarming Iraq. As he went into detailed explanations, in the face of some mildly hostile questioning about his reports, one could only feel sympathy for him. His reports were all carefully hedged in semi legal language and his refusal to affirm what he was uncertain of led to the less scrupulous deliberately claiming untruths from it.
A little insight into the minds of respective national leaders came in January 2003, when Hans Blix was not allowed to return to Iraq. He met Tony Blair who said UK intelligence showed there were weapons of mass destruction. He met Jacques Chirac in Paris who said he did not think Iraq had such things. Blix reminded him that his own security services thought differently, to which came the gallic response that Intelligence Services “intoxicate each other”.
How different the world would be now if January 2003 had been an assertion of UN values rather than an Anglo-American attempt to render it impotent. The US elections are dominated by “security” issues. Bush asserts the right to wage illegal war anywhere in the world. The last three years of illegal wars and conflict, loss of civil rights, and huge costs have hardly made anyone safer. This ought to be the golden opportunity for the Democrats to oust Bush. However, incumbents are seldom defeated if their opponents allow themselves to debate the same issues on the same values. It isn’t clear if Kerry is opposing the wars of George Bush, or just the tactics that the neo cons are using in pursuit of their ludicrous aims. The American anti war movement is very large, as is the anger at the social injustices in the United States, not least the forty million Americans without access to health care. It is these forces Kerry needs to reckon with and represent.
Last weekend was the Annual Conference of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and thanks to Ken Livingstone, was held in the spectacular surroundings of London’s City Hall. The most inspiring address came from Hiroshi Taka of the Japanese Peace Movement, who described the continuing effects of Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombs of 1945. He also described the huge pressures on to change the Japanese constitution to allow external military activities. The Japanese peace movement has been an inspiration for so long, and next year’s sixtieth anniversary of the first bombings should be the opportunity for a re-assertion of the values of peace.
The peace movement is vital for Trade Unions, in the same way that Trade Unions are vital for the peace movement.
The horror of the war in Iraq, the loss of civil liberties, and the enormous costs of the re-armament of Britain and America do affect social programmes and jobs. Over the years, many Unions have been very supportive of CND and are also supportive of the Stop the War Coalition.
There is no doubt that much has been achieved since 1997, with minimum wage legislation, and public investment and training. However, to go into an election campaign promising to slash 100,000 civil service jobs, the very people who have delivered the social advances, and not be able to guarantee a decent state pension linked to earnings, at the very least, is likely to depress support.
On top of this, to simply ignore the public disgust over Iraq and refuse to set a date for the withdrawal of British troops begs another question. Do the neo cons in the USA have more influence over our international policy than the Labour movement?
Burston up to date
September 8, 2004
At the outbreak of World War One, the Higdon’s teachers at the Norfolk school in Burston were the centre of an outrage. They lost their jobs because they were good teachers who stood against the values of the local squires and taught, instead, human values.
The subsequent strike, its support from the local rural workers, and the wider labour movement is the stuff of legends, and the beautiful school room on the village green is a testament to the excitement generated throughout the land.
Last Sunday, the first in September, was the annual rally, and in this beautiful setting under a clear late summer sky, one could only wonder at the hardships those pioneer trade unionists and socialists endured for justice and belief.
Well attended, as ever, and wonderfully organised by the Agricultural Workers section of the T&GWU it had a slightly different theme to earlier years.
The leaflet announcing the event was partly in Portuguese, as was the music, and some of the speeches were in Portuguese, including a contribution from former Labour MEP Eryl McNally. Eryly quite rightly praised the Higdons for standing against feudal values
This was not in honour of the hosts of Euro 2004, but of solidarity of ordinary workers.
Much of the fruit and vegetable picking in Britain is done by migrant labour. Like migrant workers the world over, they are subject to abuse, discrimination and exploitation. The National Minimum Wage is supposed to protect them and the new Gangmasters Licensing Scheme will be a huge help in stopping some of the abuses of migrant workers. Racism is never far away from the plight of migrant workers, and it is easy to find resonance for the values of the Daily Mail in parts of the country.
The racism against the Portuguese in Boston, Lincolnshire, after the defeat of England at football in June, shows what lies below the surface.
However, in his speech to the Burston Rally, Peter Medawar, the T&GWU organiser, singled out for special praise the role played by Portuguese workers in the victory at Bernard Mathews (”bootiful” turkeys) factory. The message is simple: un-organised workers present a threat to everyone; organised workers are a boost for us all.
Trade Unions can never just be about pay and workplaces; they have to be part of then wider community. Diana Holland, the T&GWU National Equalities Officer made the telling point that Unions and communities are one and the same, and it is the strength that wins new legislation and inspires young people to join.
In her speech the Deputy General Secretary of the TUC, Frances O’Grady explained that Unions, now seven million strong, were the largest organised force in the country, and had to have influence on the Labour Movement.
Rural Britain is a very different place from the hierarchies the Higdons railed against. Many fewer people work on the land; machines do that. More still work in packaging and processing, and many are un-organised, grossly exploited, and dependent on the Agricultural Wages Board for their protection.
But in the wider sense, the de-regulation of agricultural prices has given huge powers to the big buyers, the supermarket chains. In many ways, the unity of the landowning classes of the nineteenth and twentieth century, has been replaced with the buying power of Wallmart, Sainsbury’s and Tesco.
This not just a British issue.
Pressures across Europe for a free market continent to “compete” with the rest of the world are a huge threat to the organised working class. They are also an opportunity.
Just as the nineteenth century Trade Unionists saw the need for the unity of industrial workers across national boundaries, there is more than ever the need for unity across continents. The companies that are so powerful in setting world prices, and thus degrees of exploitation and poverty, are well organised. It is the international labour interests that need to be better coordinated.
The World Social Forum is a great opportunity. Next month in London, the European Social Forum gives us an opportunity to come together to talk, think, develop ideas but above all organise. Not for the superiority of Europe but for the binding of the labour movements of Europe, with those of the southern countries. We are united by values and divided by the market place.
Ninety years ago the Higdons, Tom and Annie, stood for something good and better against all the grains of the times. The children of farm labourers saw this, were inspired and responded, and thus started the longest ever strike.
That inspiration was passed on to many generations.
Now, in Norfolk. Who is remembered? The local Squire and landowners who used their influence to sack the teachers and defame their characters, or two inspirational teachers, who in the midst of national patriotic fervour taught values of community and justice? They did all this during and after the First World War. Now a more sceptical and better informed world sees disasters being built on tragedies.
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are brutal and bloody and in each new horrors and death appears. As if lessons need to be learnt, the tragedies such as Beslan are from forces unleashed by the global conflict. Only other values and aims removed from stealing natural resources and arms can bring a long term peace.
Those who meet in Brighton later this month for the Labour Party Conference should pause for a moment and consider whether our movement grew from corporate sponsorship of events and causes, or from ordinary people who had no alternative but to unite for the common good. The Higdon’s have a greater legacy than either realised in their own lives.
